Shared Memory Telemetry Buffer for Cloud Native Observability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing observability tools in cloud native environments, such as OpenTelemetry, introduce significant communication overhead due to socket-based communication methods, which can negatively impact application performance and user experience.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a shared memory telemetry data buffer and using remote direct memory access (RDMA) mechanisms to transfer telemetry data from containers to a backend system, thereby reducing communication overhead and improving performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If socket-based communication methods are used for telemetry data transfer, then communication reliability is maintained, but communication overhead increases and performance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a shared memory buffer as an intermediary component between the observability tool and the backend system. This buffer serves as a mediator that decouples the data collection process from the data transmission process, allowing the observability tool to write telemetry data to the buffer without immediate communication overhead to the backend, thereby improving application performance while maintaining reliable data transfer through the buffer mechanism
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from traditional socket-based communication (network dimension) to shared memory communication (memory dimension). By changing the communication dimension from network I/O to in-memory operations, the system achieves lower overhead and improved performance while maintaining data reliability through the structured buffer architecture
2Reliability
If traditional communication protocols are used, then compatibility and reliability are ensured, but communication latency increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the mechanical socket-based communication system with a shared memory-based system. This substitution eliminates the overhead of network protocol processing, packetization, and I/O operations associated with traditional communication mechanisms, thereby reducing communication latency while maintaining reliability through the structured buffer and backend retrieval mechanism
3Measurement precision
If observability tools collect detailed telemetry data from multiple containers, then observability capability is improved, but system overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the telemetry data collection and storage functions into a unified shared memory buffer system. Multiple container observability tools write to a common buffer structure, eliminating the need for separate communication channels for each container. This consolidation reduces system overhead while maintaining comprehensive observability capabilities across all containers through the centralized buffer architecture
Data Source
AI summary
Mechanisms are provided for collecting telemetry data from an observability tool of a container executing on a host computing system. The mechanisms configure a shared memory to implement a telemetry data buffer. The telemetry data buffer is shared by observability tool instances of a plurality of containers on one or more host computing systems. Observability tool instance(s) collect telemetry data from a corresponding container in the plurality of containers. The collected telemetry data is written to a record in the telemetry data buffer. A backend computing system accesses the records in the telemetry data buffer to apply analytics to the telemetry data.